Immigration

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls on the Government to take all necessary steps to reduce immigration to a level that will stabilise the UK’s population as close as possible to its present level and, certainly, significantly below 70 million.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) and the Backbench Business Committee for providing time for the House to debate this topic, which is of fundamental importance to the future of our country and which badly needs to be addressed on more occasions in this House and the other place. I welcome the new Minister for Immigration, with whom I hope the cross-party group on balanced migration will be able to have as good a relationship as we did with his predecessor.

This debate is in response to a petition launched by Migration Watch UK on the Government’s website last autumn, which acquired more than 100,000 signatures within a week. That clearly indicates the grave public concern about the scale of immigration to this country.

We can, of course, all agree that immigration is a natural and essential part of an open economy. There is absolutely no doubt that many immigrants make a most valuable contribution to our society, and I hope that we can take that as read in this debate. The real issue that must concern the House and all our fellow citizens is the scale of immigration. Heads must come out of the sand.

We are currently experiencing the greatest wave of immigration to our country in nearly 1,000 years. One of the worst of the many appalling legacies that the last Labour Government, in their folly, bequeathed this country was their chaotic, ill thought out and deeply irresponsible policy on immigration, which has led to bogus colleges being allowed to flourish by the hundred; nearly half a million asylum files being found lying around in warehouses; a Home Office that, after a decade of Labour government, was declared by Labour’s own Home Secretary to be “not fit for purpose”; a new so-called points-based system that has turned out to be a bureaucratic nightmare; and a fivefold increase in net immigration from 50,000 when Labour came into government to 250,000 when it left.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Nicholas Soames]

I will not; I will continue, if I may. The outcome was a total of 3.5 million foreign immigrants, during which time 1 million British citizens left our shores. As the Institute for Public Policy Research put it,

“It is no exaggeration to say that immigration under new Labour has changed the face of the country.”

All that took place in the teeth of public opinion, and without any proper consultation or debate. Public concern—indeed anger—has been mounting, and opinion polls paint an unmistakable and chastening picture. There are, of course, positive aspects. All of us know that immigration has had a positive effect on entrepreneurial skills, premier league football, film, music, art and literature, as well as on food and restaurants. None of that is in dispute but, as I have said, the issue is one of scale.

The most immediate effect of the wave of immigration has been on our population. The results of the 2011 census show that in the past 10 years, the population increase in England and Wales was the largest for any period since census taking began in 1801. Looking ahead, if net migration continues at 200,000 people a year—the average over the past 10 years—we will find that our population hits 70 million in 15 years’ time.

Let us be clear about what that means. We would see a population increase of 7.7 million people, nearly 5 million of whom would be purely as a result of new immigrants and their children. Numbers of that kind are hard to grasp, so let me put it like this: in the coming 15 years, just for new immigrants and their families, we will have to build the equivalent of eight of the largest cities outside the capital—Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Bristol and Glasgow—together with the associated social infrastructure of schools, roads, hospitals, railways and all the rest. Perhaps those who support the continuation of mass immigration will explain where the money will come from to cope with such numbers, particularly at a time when the Government are borrowing £1 for every £4 they spend.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nicholas Soames]

I will not. There are some who try to wave away those figures on the basis that they are only projections. The fact is, however, that for the past 50 years the Office for National Statistics has been accurate to plus or minus 2.5% on its 20-year projections. The other claim is that Britain is not really crowded. That, of course, is a matter of opinion, and the public are crystal clear on it.

Faced with that chaotic situation, the Government have gone about things in the right way. They have carried out a careful and thorough review of the three major immigration routes: students, economic migration and marriage. I commend my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the former Immigration Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), for their grasp of the issues and their determination to tackle them.

This House should be under no delusion: the public demand and expect the Government of this country to deal with and fix these matters. The most recent numbers are rather disappointing, but it is too early to expect any substantial effect on net immigration. Last week’s figures apply only to the first full year of the coalition Government, and that time was needed to review the complex system that they inherited.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nicholas Soames]

I will not because I have a very short period of time in which to speak. Of course, the rules cannot be changed for those who have already arrived. Numbers will come down, but a renewed effort is needed.

Where should that effort lie? I do not suggest any early changes to the regulations on economic migration. Business needs stability and predictability, as well as a system that works quickly and effectively. The first priority, therefore, must be to reshape the shambolic points-based system that was introduced in the last years of the Labour Government and has resulted in hundreds—about 800—pages of guidance, as well as enormously long forms to be filled in by applicants for visas or work permits. I will be writing to my hon. Friend the Immigration Minister about some particularly disgraceful and inefficient episodes in that regard, concerning distinguished people who need to come to this country and whom the country wishes to welcome.

Instead of relying on the common sense of an experienced immigration officer, we now rely only on a box-ticking exercise, which is emphatically not the right way to proceed. The last straw was the introduction of the hub-and-spoke system where decisions are often taken in a consulate miles away—indeed, frequently in a different country altogether—with none of the local knowledge that is vital in such decisions. The futile attempt to base decisions on so-called objective criteria is, in practice, impossible given the huge variety of circumstances among the 2 million visa applications received every year. Common sense has gone out the window. Bureaucracy has taken over and the Government must deal urgently with the issue and get it fixed.

The Government must now take four steps. First, as I have explained, they must move away from this disastrous experiment and get some rational thought into individual immigration decisions. Secondly, they must greatly expand the number of student interviews to ensure that bogus students are refused. There is clear evidence from the National Audit Office and the Home Office pilot scheme that tens of thousands of bogus students have been admitted to this country in recent years. Thirdly, the Government must reduce the validity of visitor visas to three months, and strengthen the powers of immigration officers so that an element of judgment is reintroduced for visitors as well as students. Finally, they must strengthen the removal system, and especially its link with decisions that visas should not be extended.

That will require further sustained effort over many years. The devil will always be in the detail, but the outcome is of the first and most critical importance for the future and stability of the life of our country. The Prime Minister has given his word that the Government will bring net migration down to tens of thousands. Failure to do so will leave our population rising inexorably, pressure on our already hard-pressed public services building up relentlessly and, as a result, mounting social tension. We must stop that happening. I commend the Government’s actions thus far, but I warn them, and the House, that the stakes are high. There is a long way to go, difficult decisions to take, and the time scales are unforgiving.

We must all seek at every possible occasion to speak candidly about the serious social and policy implications of mass immigration, and continue to search for an effective, humane and fair way ahead that will command the support of the British people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, like all Members who have spoken in this debate, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) on introducing this debate. I fully agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff) that it is right that Parliament should talk about and address one of the issues that is of primary concern to a great number of our constituents. A lot of them take such issues seriously, whether they be migrants themselves, whether their families have been in this country for 1,500 years, or whether they be second or third generation migrants. I have never believed that, just because somebody is concerned about immigration, that, somehow or other, makes them racist. Of course, some such people are racist, but the vast majority are not. They are not bigots; they have a serious set of concerns that we need to address, so I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I have to say, however, that I think that the right hon. Gentleman wanted to have his cake and eat it, if he does not mind me saying so.

[Nicholas Soames]

I have always wanted my cake.

[Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Gentleman is smiling. I did not mean that to be a foodist comment. He argued in favour of cuts to immigration, but then said that he wants an easier system for distinguished people to come into the country. He said that he wants to get rid of the hub and spoke system, but I would suggest that that would significantly increase the costs of running this country’s migration system, and that he wants to give the officials far more discretion. There is real danger in going down that route. We have to have a system that is manifestly fair and robust and that delivers the same outcome, whatever personal connections somebody may have.

As several Members have said, there are three problems with the motion. First, it links immigration policy to population, and population only. Secondly, it uses the phrase “all necessary steps”, which is a very dangerous set of words. Thirdly, there is a danger that if we agree to the motion we would effectively be cutting off our noses to spite our faces, because of the potential unintended consequences for the future with regard to our economy and our society, let alone to the specifics of our education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicholas Soames]

I once again welcome my hon. Friend the new Minister and wish him every success in this very difficult brief. I congratulate all colleagues who spoke in this debate. What is most important is that there has been a debate. There need to be more debates. All these views are important and need to be aired. Inevitably, we hold differing views, but from these Benches we urge the Minister to press ahead, above all, with making the process more robust and more effective, and thus more humane and understood. Above all, we must ensure that we honour our manifesto commitment to see these numbers fall.

I take the point made by the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) about humanity and human beings, and I acknowledge that it is of course extraordinarily important. But we do need to fix these numbers. I hope that people outside Parliament will feel that these matters have been properly discussed today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House calls on the Government to take all necessary steps to reduce immigration to a level that will stabilise the UK’s population as close as possible to its present level and, certainly, significantly below 70 million.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

Provided that the Select Committee conducts its business in the best traditions of the way in which I would expect a Committee of this House to do so, any difficulties that may arise in relation to an ongoing criminal investigation ought to be surmountable, and indeed I made that clear during last week’s debate. The difficulty that I identified with part of the motion that had been tabled on behalf of the shadow Chancellor was that it was quite prescriptive in terms of what it wanted the judicial inquiry to do. I foresaw that that could cause particular extra problems.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Would the Attorney-General consider making arrangements to enable people to move in and out of the SFO on a more regular basis, so that the experience of working for the organisation could be more widely spread throughout the private sector?

[The Attorney-General]

To-ing and fro-ing between prosecutors and the private sector is always desirable. The SFO does a great deal of work in trying to recruit from the private sector, encouraging individuals to work there for a period and then return. That is a very good way of acquiring expertise, and I know that the current director will have it very much in mind.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If I could just make some progress—[Hon. Members: “Give way!”] Yes, of course I give way.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend, but will he cease to quote Churchill on these matters, given that they relate to Churchill’s views on the House of Lords at a time of great conflict between the House of Commons and the House of Lords in the 1920s? As he grew up through his political life, he dropped those views and had great reverence and respect for the institution of the House of Lords—something that I suggest my right hon. Friend should have as well.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course I will always refer to the views of Winston Churchill with a great deal of respect, but I point out only that he expressed those views in 1910, when of course he was a Liberal, not in the 1920s. I know that he changed his views later, and they are a matter of record.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I thought that the speech by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) was magnificent, so she should not give any consideration to her concerns.

I wholly support the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who captured the whole sense of what is wrong with the Bill. When one considers the great historical events that have shaped our British constitutional and political history—Magna Carta, the Reformation, the civil war, the Glorious Revolution, the Great Reform Act—it is easy to understand why a former distinguished Speaker, the great Baroness Boothroyd, on a programme on the wireless this morning, described the Bill as a constitutional outrage.

On the same programme, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), in an impertinent assertion—I am sorry he is not here to take his medicine—assured the world that Churchill would have voted for this proposal. First, that is not for him to say, given that he has absolutely no idea whether it would have been the case and, secondly, most historians would agree that it is highly unlikely that Churchill would ever have voted for an elected second Chamber, which he would rightly have perceived as a serious challenge to the House of Commons.

Most people looking in on our proceedings would think it extraordinary that in a country where so few things work—I think of the Government’s dismal inability even to fix the immigration controls at Heathrow—we should be setting about wasting an inordinate amount of valuable Government time on proposals that are ill thought out and falsely conceived, as part of a deal to conciliate our coalition partners.

The country faces global challenges. These are not peaceful, fertile times with the space to consider and reform at leisure one of the greatest and most important institutions of the land. Like all my colleagues, however, I accept that there are useful and important reforms that should be made to their lordships’ House without upsetting the constitutional applecart. I say to my own Front-Bench team that by pushing ahead with this foolish enterprise, they are diminishing the Government’s sense of urgency and purpose to put our country back in a better place. They are throwing away the chance to build on the British public’s clear and—in my lifetime—unique understanding that we live in an era of great austerity, that there are difficult and important decisions to take and that the Government should get on and take them, rather than worrying about undermining our constitution.

The essential argument is that the creation of an elected second Chamber would inevitably transform relations between the two Chambers and would produce a House that would increasingly be in competition with the House of Commons. The evidence of the Clerk of the House in this regard should be studied most carefully by all those who intend to vote on these profoundly disappointing proposals. The House is going to vote potentially to enshrine in our national political life the recipe for a permanent constitutional crisis.

Of course, the House of Lords needs reforming—it is too big and there are sensible measures that we could take—but I profoundly believe that an appointed House has very real merit. It can deliberately reflect the diversity of our country in a way that the House of Commons simply cannot. The present House of Lords has the same gender balance as us, an honourable and long-standing tradition of ethnic diversity and, incidentally, a considerable number of disabled Members. Most importantly, however, it contains a vast reservoir of talent and experience that complements a more youthful and aggressive House of Commons without ever being able to threaten it.

The Bill will inevitably lead to the greater politicisation of the House of Lords, blur the harmonious and distinctive differences between the two Houses and remove the correctly unambiguous democratic mandate that the House of Commons rightly enjoys. The Bill will pile a constitutional crisis on top of an economic crisis that we all know will last for a long time. The Conservative party has honoured the obligation in our manifesto; that commitment has been discharged. It is now the duty of every Member to consider their position carefully before knowingly doing something to unpick that which we know works, however imperfectly. We should wait for better hours and better days, when we have the space and the time really to think this through.

EU Council

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am still waiting for my apology, which I notice I have not yet got. Perhaps there will be a few more questions first. The hon. Gentleman will know that in order to deal with the problem of the two Parliaments we need a treaty change, so he should want to bring it on.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

May I associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) about the importance of trade and the single market? Does the Prime Minister agree that if we are to see a return to prosperity in the European Union, the rules of the World Trade Organisation need to be vigorously enforced? To that end, it would be fatal were we not to be sitting at the table when those matters are discussed.

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. One of the things that we have made progress on over the past two years is the EU free trade deals with fast-growing parts of the world, including Korea, and obviously negotiations are under way with Singapore, India and others, including possibly Japan. In recent weeks, we have also made some quite exciting progress with the idea of an EU-US trade deal, so there are things that European nations can do together for our mutual benefit. Trade and the single market are clearly absolutely up there, and I very much agree with my right hon. Friend on that point.

G8 and NATO Summits

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman speaks with great knowledge of this subject. I would be a little more optimistic: one NATO reform, which I know he would welcome, aimed to cut the bureaucratic and headquarters posts around Europe. To be fair to Secretary-General Rasmussen, he has done an excellent job in delivering that. We have also delivered the ballistic missile defence in interim capability, which is another important step forward for NATO. Where I am perhaps more optimistic than the right hon. Gentleman is that I think the reality of the situation will drive us towards reform. Everyone faces tough budgets, and the fact that America is now providing almost three quarters of NATO’s funding and assets is unsustainable, so other countries are, frankly, going to have to step up to the plate, look at their arrangements and co-operate more, as we are with the French, to deliver more of the teeth and less of the tail.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

May I warmly endorse the Prime Minister’s view that NATO is vital to our security and congratulate him on the very positive role he played at the summit as the leader of one of NATO’s most important countries? Does he agree that the Secretary-General’s programme for smart defence is key to the future reform of NATO and that the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) spoke a great deal of sense?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks. The truth is that there is duplicated defence capacity all over Europe, much of which is not deployable. We need all countries to undergo the difficult and painful things we have done in strategic defence reviews to work out what weapons and systems are needed for the conflicts of the future, recognising that NATO is less likely to fight land invasions and much more likely to have to deal with failed states and terrorism, so the needed capacities are different. Even that will not be enough, as we then need a lot more co-operation—particularly, I think, between the leading members of NATO, which is why we are working so closely with the French—so that we can deliver complementary capabilities and get more done as a result.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that he ought to know that we were acting in accordance with a law passed by his Government, the Enterprise Act 2002. That Act requires consideration of the company’s representations in terms of reference to the Competition Commission. If that is not taken into account, the matter could be subject to a judicial review. What I said, and what the Secretary of State said, which is that each stage he took independent advice and followed that advice, is correct.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

All sensible people will welcome the Prime Minister’s approach to this very serious matter, but does he agree that it would be quite wrong to rush to judgment and that he has a duty to follow a just and exhaustive process?

[The Prime Minister]

I do think this is right. Perhaps we can recognise, if we go back over 10 or 20 years in politics, that it is frankly the easiest thing in the world for a Prime Minister to stand at this Dispatch Box and say to a member of the Cabinet, “Oh, it’s all getting a bit difficult—off you go.” I think it is important to get to the facts—to get to the truth. That is what I believe in doing. It is called natural justice, and we should have some more of it.

Diamond Jubilee

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

It is a great honour to join my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and other colleagues in the House’s tribute to Her Majesty the Queen on the presentation of an Humble Address.

On the night of Monday 4 April 1955, on the eve of his resignation as Prime Minister, my kinsman Sir Winston Churchill gave a dinner at No. 10 Downing street for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. It was attended by Churchill’s closest political and military colleagues and friends, and by members of his private office and his family. The Prime Minister, in proposing the Queen’s health, said this:

“I propose a health to Your Majesty which I used to drink in the days when I was a young Officer in the 4th Hussars in the reign of Your Majesty’s great, great grandmother, Queen Victoria”.

He ended with the following words:

“And I drink to the wise and kindly way of life of which Your Majesty is the young and gleaming champion”.

I am sure that this whole House will agree that Her Majesty the Queen has, throughout her long reign, indeed been a gleaming champion for her country and for the Commonwealth. Crowned in the same abbey church as William the Conqueror, at the same age—26—as the first Queen Elizabeth 400 years earlier, she embodies all the best qualities and the continuity that are so important to our country and its splendid, independent people. This diamond jubilee will thus be an occasion for the nation to thank the Queen, who has served us so professionally, so loyally and so conscientiously through these extraordinary 60 years of some of the most tumultuous social, economic and technological change that Britain has ever seen.

The Queen brings to our national life an experience and knowledge of politics and events all around the world which is truly unrivalled by any other person in the land. Throughout her long reign, she has displayed great, good judgment, tolerance and absolute political neutrality at all times. When she ascended to the throne, her first Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was of an age to have charged with the 21st Lancers at the battle of Omdurman in 1898, while her present Prime Minister was not even born in 1952. Such is the scale and breadth of the life that she has so triumphantly lived through.

The Queen is a source of powerful influence for this country throughout the world, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said. She is the Queen of 16 countries, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and the Head of the Commonwealth, an organisation that includes more than a quarter of the earth’s population. She thus brings a vital and often unrecognised addition to our efforts and our influence overseas. We in this House in particular should recognise this as an irreplaceable national asset of the first importance.

Every country needs someone who can represent the whole nation. It may seem primitive—and indeed it is—but if nationhood is to mean anything, it has to have a focus. In our case, for 60 years that focus has been, and remains, the Queen. Nations do have values, and they should be proud of them and willing to express that pride. That is what we are able to do with our monarchy and our Queen, and what we will do this year.

The Queen, blessed with a happy marriage to a remarkable consort who has done so much to support her, does a job that demands tremendous physical and mental toughness and energy. Quite apart from her still extensive public engagements, her work follows her wherever she goes, and always has done. Her life has truly been one of selfless duty. Yet sadly, there is probably no day when she will not read something about her or her family in the media or see something on television that is untrue, cruel or just plain silly.

We are indeed blessed to have in the Queen someone who is truly a remarkable example of dedication, efficiency and common sense, with a tremendously good judgment of people and—last, but by no means least—an excellent sense of humour. Those attributes, added to a perfectly wondrous dislike of pomposity and vanity, and an absolute inability to pretend to be anything other than herself, make the Queen what she is: arguably the most respected and admired—indeed, loved—public figure in the world.

I conclude as I started, with Churchill on the Queen. Broadcasting to the nation on 7 February 1952, on the death of King George VI, he ended with these words:

“I, whose youth was passed in the august, unchallenged and tranquil glories of the Victorian Era, may well feel a thrill in invoking, once more, the prayer and the Anthem ‘God Save the Queen’.”

And, 60 years on, so do we all, Mr Speaker—with all our hearts.

European Council

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am afraid I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. Britain has leading industries in services, energy and the digital economy. If we can complete the single market in those areas, there are real opportunities for British business. The additions to gross domestic product that we would have through completing the single market in those areas would partly mean jobs, investment and growth here in the UK. When there is no room for fiscal stimulus, as there is not in the UK because the budget deficit is so big, and when we already have a very accommodating monetary policy, the right way for growth is to look at structural reform and changes, just as we are doing through the EU.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that ambitious companies looking for growth in Mid Sussex will be extremely pleased with the steps the Government took towards seeking to resolve the crisis in Europe through growth? May I suggest that he looks further back—to European Councils of the past 10 years—to see how many good ideas signed up to came to naught, and could well, with a bit of effort, have come to something good?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is correct about this. Of course, Europe has on many previous occasions signed up to wonderful rhetoric about single markets, energy and all the rest of it. That is partly what the Lisbon agenda—not the treaty—was all about. What is different this time is that there was real pressure from the 11 countries that signed the letter with Britain to insist on actions and dates by which those actions would be taken. We must still ensure that those things are achieved. Many countries will want to hold up getting rid of regulations on services and many will want to keep some of those regulations on small businesses, but we now have a majority in the EU to try to fix those things in a way that is good for our country.

Informal European Council

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The only way I can answer that question is to say that the Greeks have to decide themselves whether they want to stay in the euro. If they do, they have clearly got to meet some pretty exacting targets for reducing Government deficit, reducing Government debt and accepting a very austere approach. If Greece wants to stay in the euro, those are the conditions it will have to meet. I am not Greek; I am British. We have made our decision to stay out of the euro; this is their decision, and we should not tell them what to do.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

It is clear that the Prime Minister has considerable support within Europe in seeking a more adaptable, flexible and competitive economy. Will he reassure businesses in my constituency and elsewhere that the casting of the veto will have done nothing to prevent his ability to drive forward that agenda in Europe?

[The Prime Minister]

What last night’s meeting proved is that there is a very strong and growing consensus for action around the European Council table on issues of competitiveness. British Ministers—and, to be fair to Labour, British Ministers for the last 20 years—have been going to Europe arguing for completing the single market, deregulation, lifting the burdens on business and all those issues, and we have always had strong supporters in the northern liberal countries, as it were, but we have come unstuck when it comes to other countries. I think we now see—partly because the centre right is in power in so much of Europe—really strong support for that sort of agenda, and we can certainly drive it forward.

EU Council

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

With huge respect to the hon. Lady, I think that she is wrong on both counts. I did not go to Brussels seeking a treaty change; the point was that if a treaty change was put forward, there needed to be safeguards for Britain. That is the first point. The second point is that I did not go thinking that a treaty change would necessarily lead to a referendum, because I was not willing to sign up to a treaty change that passed power from Britain to Brussels, so I am afraid that both parts of her question are inaccurate. I also did not go to Brussels with an impossibly long list of demands because of pressure or anything else; I went to Brussels with a set of proposals that were modest, reasonable and relevant.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend reassure successful, outward-looking businesses in Mid Sussex, some of which are understandably anxious about the consequences of what may flow from this weekend, that what the United Kingdom seeks is an adaptable, flexible and competitive EU, and that we will continue to play a full and creative role in Europe, as well as fortifying our important, substantial bilateral relations elsewhere?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree wholeheartedly with what my right hon. Friend says and I will reassure those businesses. The absolutely key thing is that the single market, which is fully protected by the European Commission, the European Court of Justice and all the institutions of the EU, is unchanged. We have full membership of those treaties and of that organisation, and because the other EU members are going for a treaty outside the EU, that protection will remain. I would say to those businesses that not only do we maintain the single market, but we will keep up the pressure for something else they need, which is a more fundamental solution to the crisis affecting the eurozone.